The BBC is to publish the details of expenses of executive board members, including the director general, Mark Thompson, as part of moves to make the corporation more open and accountable.

From October the BBC will make public the expenses of Thompson and the other eight members of the BBC executive board, as well as the corporation's non-executive directors, every six months.

Expenses claims will be published for Thompson and his executive board colleagues, the deputy director general, Mark Byford; the director of audio and music, Tim Davie; the future media and technology director, Erik Huggers; the director of BBC Vision, Jana Bennett; and the BBC Worldwide chief executive, John Smith.

The other BBC executive board members are Sharon Bayly, the director of marketing communications and audiences; the group finance director, Zarin Patel; and Lucy Adams, director of the corporation's human resources operation.

The non-executive directors of the BBC are Marcus Agius, Val Gooding, Mike Lynch, David Robbie, Samir Shah and Robert Webb.

The decision to publish this information was taken last September following an internal review to increase the openness and transparency of the BBC, and not in response to the political crisis that has developed around MPs' expenses, a corporation spokeswoman said.

Last year's review is likely to lead to the regular publication of similar details in other areas where the BBC is already fielding regular Freedom of Information Act requests, such as taxi bills.

The BBC has faced increased scrutiny in recent times, with a trebling of FOI requests.

In response the corporation has been looking at what information it might look to publish on a regular basis, in a move that will also cut the staff time and money spent on dealing with FOI requests.

"The BBC routinely looks at ways to improve its best practices and the idea to publish executive directors' expenses arose out of ongoing discussions about improving transparency and accountability," said a BBC spokeswoman. "The BBC is planning to publish executive board expenses (in line with what the BBC Trust publishes) later this year. All other requests for expenses are dealt with on a case-by-case basis."